The invention particularly relates to new compounds capable of inhibiting bacterial and/or parasite fatty acid biosynthesis and their use as antibacterial and/or antiparasitic agents.
The emergence of antibiotic-resistant pathogens has become a serious worldwide healthcare problem. Indeed, some infections are now caused by multi-drug resistant organisms that are no longer responsive to currently available treatments. There is therefore an immediate need for new antibacterial/antiparasitic agents with a novel mode of action.
The bacterial fatty acid biosynthesis (FASII system) has recently generated a lot of interest for the development of novel antibacterial/antiparasitic agents (Rock et al. J. Biol. Chem. 2006, 281, 17541; Wright and Reynolds Curr. Opin. Microbiol. 2007, 10, 447). The organization of components in the bacterial fatty acid biosynthesis pathway based on discrete enzymes is fundamentally different from the multifunctional FASI system found in mammals, therefore allowing good prospects of selective inhibition. The overall high degree of conservation in many enzymes of the bacterial FASII system should also allow the development of broader-spectrum antibacterial/antiparasitic agents.
Among all the monofunctional enzymes of the bacterial FASII system, FabI represents the enoyl-ACP reductase responsible of the last step of the fatty acid biosynthetic elongation cycle. Using the cofactor NAD(P)H as a hydride source, FabI reduces the double bond in the trans-2-enoyl-ACP intermediate to the corresponding acyl-ACP product. This enzyme has been shown to constitute an essential target in major pathogens such as E. coli (Heath et al. J. Biol. Chem. 1995, 270, 26538; Bergler et al. Eur. J. Biochem. 1996, 242, 689) and S. aureus (Heath et al. J. Biol. Chem. 2000, 275, 4654). However, other isoforms have been isolated such as FabK from S. pneumoniae (Heath et al. Nature 2000, 406, 145) and FabL from B. subtilis (Heath et al. J. Biol. Chem. 2000, 275, 40128). Although FabK is structurally and mechanistically unrelated to FabI (Marrakchi et al. Biochem J. 2003, 370, 1055), the similarity of FabI with FabL (B. subtilis), InhA (M. tuberculosis) and PfENR (P. falciparum) still offers opportunities of interesting activity spectra (Heath et al. Prog. Lipid Res. 2001, 40, 467).
Several FabI inhibitors have already been reported in the literature (Tonge et al. Acc. Chem. Res. 2008, 41, 11). Some of them such as diazaborines (Baldock et al. Science 1996, 274, 2107) and isoniazid in its activated form (Tonge et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2003, 100, 13881) act by covalently modifying the cofactor NAD+. However some drawbacks are associated with these products. Diazaborines are only used experimentally because of their inherent toxicity (Baldock et al. Biochem. Pharmacol. 1998, 55, 1541) while isoniazid is a prodrug restricted to the treatment of susceptible tuberculosis. The fact that isoniazid requires activation by hydrogen-peroxyde inducible enzymes (Schultz et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1995, 117, 5009) enhances the possibilities of resistance by lack of activation or increased detoxification (Rosner et al. Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. 1993, 37, 2251 and ibid 1994, 38, 1829).
Other inhibitors act by interacting noncovalently with the enzyme-cofactor complex. For instance Triclosan, a widely used consumer goods preservative with broad spectrum antimicrobial activity, has been found to be a reversible, tight-binding inhibitor of E. coli FabI (Ward et al. Biochemistry 1999, 38, 12514). Intravenous toxicology studies on this compound indicated a LD50 on rats of 29 mg/kg clearly ruling out intravenous injection (Lyman et al. Ind. Med. Surg. 1969, 38, 42). Derivatives based on the 2-hydroxydiphenyl ether core of Triclosan have been reported (Tonge et al. J. Med. Chem. 2004, 47, 509, ACS Chem. Biol. 2006, 1, 43 and Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett. 2008, 18, 3029; Surolia et al. Bioorg. Med. Chem. 2006, 14, 8086 and ibid 2008, 16, 5536; Freundlich et al. J. Biol. Chem. 2007, 282, 25436) as well as other inhibitors based on various classes of high throughput screening derived templates (Seefeld et al. Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett. 2001, 11, 2241 and J. Med. Chem. 2003, 46, 1627; Heerding et al. Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett. 2001, 11, 2061; Miller et al. J. Med. Chem. 2002, 45, 3246; Payne et al. Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. 2002, 46, 3118; Sacchettini et al. J. Biol. Chem. 2003, 278, 20851; Moir et al. Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. 2004, 48, 1541; Montellano et al. J. Med. Chem. 2006, 49, 6308; Kwak et al. Int. J. Antimicro. Ag. 2007, 30, 446; Lee et al. Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. 2007, 51, 2591; Kitagawa et al. J. Med. Chem. 2007, 50, 4710, Bioorg. Med. Chem. 2007, 15, 1106 and Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett. 2007, 17, 4982; Takahata et al. J. Antibiot. 2007, 60, 123; Kozikowski et al. Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett. 2008, 18, 3565), nevertheless none of these inhibitors have succeeded yet as a drug. Interestingly, some classes of these inhibitors display activity on both FabI and FabK: predominantly FabK for the dual compounds based on phenylimidazole derivatives of 4-pyridones (Kitagawa et al. J. Med. Chem. 2007, 50, 4710), predominantly FabI for the indole derivatives (Payne et al. Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. 2002, 46, 3118; Seefeld et al. J. Med. Chem. 2003, 46, 1627). However, the moderate activity on the second enzyme might prove to be a drawback for such compounds as it may lead to an increase of resistance mechanisms due to the added selection pressure (Tonge et al. Acc. Chem. Res. 2008, 41, 11).
Despite the attractiveness of FabI as an antibacterial/antiparasitic target, it is still largely unexploited at this time since there are no drugs on the market or within advanced clinical phases.
WO 2007/135562 (Mutabilis SA) describes a series of hydroxyphenyl derivatives that display a selective spectrum of activity on species containing FabI and related targets, in contrast to Triclosan.
One of the purposes of the invention is to provide novel compounds active on FabI and related targets with improved pharmacological properties over existing compounds.